風投公司 硅谷性別歧視的重災區

It is telling that the highest-profile lawsuit of the moment in Silicon Valley isn’t about intellectual property or antitrust violations, but about sex discrimination. This week, a jury in San Francisco is hearing arguments in Ellen Pao’s suit against her former employer, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, one of the most prominent venture-capital firms in the tech industry. At the heart of the case is Pao’s claim that a married colleague at Kleiner Perkins pressured her into an affair and then, after she ended the relationship, retaliated by excluding her from meetings and email discussions, which affected her work performance.

目前硅谷最引人注目的官司不是侵犯知識產權，也不是觸犯反托拉斯法，而是一樁性別歧視案，這很能說明問題。本週，舊金山一個陪審團聽取了鮑康如(Ellen Pao)訴其前僱主凱鵬華盈(Kleiner Perkins)一案的陳詞。凱鵬華盈是科技行業中最著名的風險投資公司之一。這樁案子的核心在於，鮑康如稱凱鵬華盈的一名已婚同事向她施加壓力，讓她陷入婚外情，而當她結束這種關係後，對方爲了報復她，不讓她參加會議和電子郵件討論，這影響了她的工作表現。

But Pao, who is now the interim chief executive of Reddit, has also painted a broader picture of Kleiner Perkins as a hostile bastion of male entitlement, where female partners were excluded from dinners with entrepreneurs because they would “kill the buzz.” Kleiner Perkins has responded that Pao received bad performance reviews and lacked the attributes for succeeding in venture capital — “the ability to lead others, build consensus and be a team player.” The firm also says it has long been a supporter of women in house and in the industry.

鮑康如現任Reddit臨時首席執行官，在這宗訴訟中，她還做出了一種更廣泛的描繪：凱鵬華盈是一家男性享有特權的公司，這裏女性合夥人被排除在與企業家會面的晚宴之外，因爲她們會“掃興”。凱鵬華盈迴應說，鮑康如得到了表現不佳的評價，她缺乏在風險投資業獲得成功的素質——“領導別人，建立共識，開展團隊合作。”該公司還表示，他們長期以來都對公司和行業中的女性予以支持。

The case has riveted the tech world, not just because of the personal particulars but also because of the way in which it captures the zeitgeist in one of the most powerful and gender-imbalanced corners of a powerful and gender-imbalanced industry. It’s no revelation at this point that the tech sector often isn’t an easy place to be a woman. For an article I recently wrote involving another high-profile lawsuit in Palo Alto, Calif. (over sexual harassment and assault), I talked to a dozen and a half women in the valley who are in their 20s and 30s, as well as a handful of men. As far as sex and gender were concerned, the work atmosphere they described sounded retrograde to a degree reminiscent of other glamorous industries in the growth spurt of adolescence: Hollywood in the 1950s, Wall Street in the 1980s.

此案吸引科技界的目光，不僅是因爲它包含的個人細節，也因爲它在一個最強大、性別最不平衡的一個行業中的一個最強大、性別最不平衡的角落捕捉了時代狀態。在目前階段，女性要待在科技界往往並不容易，這不是什麼祕密。最近我爲了寫另一樁發生在加利福尼亞州帕洛阿爾託的（關於性騷擾和攻擊的）備受矚目的官司，和硅谷中將近20名二三十歲的女性以及一些男性交談過。就性和性別而言，他們所描述的工作氛圍，在一定程度上讓人聯想到另外兩個令人豔羨的行業在蓬勃發展的青春期時的狀況：20世紀50年代的好萊塢，和20世紀80年代的華爾街。

“You can’t take for granted you’ll be taken seriously,” one female start-up adviser who had worked at a major tech company told me. “That is different for men, 100 percent.” Many of the women spoke with a mix of frustration and dismay about the guys in computer-science class who were reluctant to code with them or the executives who weren’t sure they were right for a job or a promotion.

“你不能想當然地以爲自己會被認真對待，”曾在大型科技公司工作過的一位女性告訴我，她現在是初創公司顧問。“情況對男性來說就不同了，100%不同。”很多女性無奈而沮喪地談到了計算機科學課上男生誰不願意與她們打交道，或高管不相信她們適合某個崗位或獲得晉升。

What’s true of Silicon Valley is especially true at venture-capital firms. Studies suggest that women make up just 19 percent of angel investors and 6 percent of partners at venture capital firms (down from 10 percent in 1999). This has predictable consequences. The women I talked to had plenty of stories of male investors who didn’t want to fund them for reasons that were either comically antiquated or suspiciously hazy. (Rarely, one suspects, are the men as blunt as the investor who told Kathryn Tucker of RedRover, an app for kids’ events, that “I don’t like the way women think.” Even when the discrimination wasn’t so overt, women told me they encountered more subtle barriers. The male venture capitalists they worked with often seemed uncomfortable with women and tended to treat them less as peers than as potential conquests.

硅谷的這種狀況，在風險投資公司尤其嚴重。研究表明，天使投資者中女性僅佔19%，風險投資公司合夥人中女性僅佔6%（1999年時還是10%）。這造成了可以預見的後果。和我交談過的那些女性，提到了很多這樣的經歷：男性投資者不願把資金投給她們，給出的理由不是陳腐得可笑，就是隱晦得可疑。（有個男性投資者告訴兒童活動應用RedRover的創始人凱瑟琳·塔克[Kathryn Tucker]：“我不喜歡女性的思路。”說話這麼直截了當的男性應該很少。）這些女性告訴我，即使在歧視不是很明顯的時候，她們也遇到了更難以言說的障礙。與她們共事的男性風投者和女性在一起時經常顯得不自在，對待她們更像是潛在的征服對象，而不是同行。

Elissa Shevinksy, a co-founder of Glimpse Labs, emphasized that “the best V.C.s and angels are very professional.” Then she told me a story about a well-liked investor who brought up pornography, sex and reincarnation as she tried to pitch her company to him. “This was just part of the sea we swim in,” she said.

Glimpse Labs的聯合創始人艾麗莎·舍溫斯基(Elissa Shevinsky)強調說，“最好的風險投資人都非常專業。”然後她告訴我一件事：當她向一個名聲很好的投資人推介自己的公司時，他提到了色情、性和轉世。“我們所處的環境就是這樣，”她說。

Shevinksy’s own “feminist breakout moment,” as she describes it, occurred in September 2013 at a hackathon hosted by TechCrunch, when a pair of programmers did a joke presentation for Titstare, “an app where you take photos of yourself staring at tits.” They closed with, “It’s the breast, most titillating fun you can’t have.” Loud applause followed from the audience of mostly male coders.

舍溫斯基說，自己的“女權主義爆發時刻”發生在2013年9月，當時TechCrunch舉辦了一個黑客馬拉松，有兩個程序員做了一個玩笑式的演示，說要推出一個名爲Titstare的應用，讓你“拍下自己盯着奶子看的樣子。”他們的結束語是，“這是乳房，你無法享有的樂趣中最撩人的一個。”觀衆中爆發出響亮的掌聲，大多觀衆是男性程序員。

Shevinsky, watching on a live stream, was incensed enough to write a scathing post for Business Insider. For a dozen years as a developer, she had defended the tech status quo on social media. “I have to admit that I was wrong,” she wrote. “I wasn’t seeing the problems clearly because I’d been part of the industry for too long. . . . I wanted to just drink Scotch with my guy friends and build software. I’m done now.” She has decided to write a book about women in tech because “women are finally speaking up, and I want to be a part of it.”

當時正在看直播視頻的舍溫斯基被激怒了，隨後寫了一篇措辭嚴厲的帖子發在“商業內幕”(Business Insider)上。作爲開發者，十幾年來她一直在社交媒體上爲科技業的現狀做辯護。“我不得不承認，我錯了，”她寫道。“我沒有看清問題，因爲我在這個行業待的時間太久了……我只想和男性友人喝喝威士忌，做做軟件。現在我不會這樣了。”她決定寫一本書，以科技界中的女性爲主題，因爲“女人終於站出來說話了，我想成爲其中一份子”。

Not surprising, there is a considerable risk in publicly naming perceived harassers. Opportunity in Silicon Valley, which prides itself on informality and a lack of concern with credentials, is unusually relationship-dependent. (It is start-up gospel that human-resources manager is the last position you fill.) Women jockeying for a job, or for funding, often “don’t want to jeopardize that by calling someone out,” Kathryn Minshew, the founder of the Muse, a career and job-search platform, told me. They worry that they will be perceived as breaking the unwritten rules — or as just not worth the trouble to work with. “Even if no one ever says anything publicly, there’s so much talk over drinks,” said Kat Li, who has worked on product and business development at several start-ups. “And you would never know.”

可以想象，把自己認爲的騷擾者指名道姓說出來，是有相當大風險的。在自詡擁有輕鬆氣氛、不那麼在乎資歷的硅谷，機遇與人際關係是息息相關的。（初創公司的信條是，人力資源經理是最後一個招的職位。）求職平臺Muse的創始人凱瑟琳·明斯(Kathryn Minshew)告訴我，在設法獲得工作或資金的女性通常“不想把這些明着說出來，免得殃及自己。”她們擔心，人們會認爲她們打破了那些不成文的規定，或着覺得與她們共事會很麻煩。“即便沒人公開說過什麼，但喝酒的時候話會變多，”卡特·李（Kat Li，音）。“而你永遠都不會知道。”凱特·李曾供職於幾家初創公司，主要負責產品和商業開發。

Some of this may be slowly changing. Li and eight other women posted a kind of manifesto for women in tech last spring that emphasized the value of speaking out about sexist jokes and incidents. Gesche Haas, an entrepreneur based in New York, did just that last summer after an encounter with a Czech angel investor named Pavel Curda at an industry event in Germany. After the meeting, Haas received an email from him reading: “Hey G. I will not leave Berlin without having sex with you. Deal?”

其中一些情況可能在慢慢改變。凱特·李和另外八名女性在去年春天爲科技行業的女性發布了一份宣言，強調說出聽到的帶有性別歧視的笑話及遇到的性別歧視事件的重要性。紐約的創業者格舍·哈斯(Gesche Haas)在去年夏天就說出了自己的遭遇，她在德國參加業內活動時遇到了捷克的天使投資者帕維爾·可達(Pavel Curda)。會議結束後，哈斯收到了可達發來的郵件，郵件寫道，“嘿，G，不把你上了我是不會離開柏林的。成交嗎？”

After learning that Curda had sent the same email to another woman at the conference, Haas posted his note online with his name rubbed out. A writer from Valleywag got in touch, saying he knew who wrote the email and wanted to include Haas’s name in an article. She agreed, though she was “petrified,” she told me recently. But she got a lot of support, she said — and Curda was dumped by three start-up accelerators (organizations that provide mentorship in exchange for equity), where he was helping to guide entrepreneurs. Curda apologized publicly to Haas, saying “I made a big mistake, and I regret it.”

在得知可達給另一名參加會議的女性發送了同樣的郵件後，哈斯在網上公佈了這封郵件，但抹掉了他的名字。博客網站Valleywag的一名博客作者和她取得聯繫，稱他知道是誰發出的郵件，並想在一篇文章中提到哈斯的名字。哈斯最近告訴我，她同意了，儘管她“驚恐萬分”。但她表示，自己獲得了很多支持，可達被三家創業加速器（通過提供指導獲取股票的機構）解僱，他曾在這些機構供職，爲創業者提供指導。可達公開向哈斯道歉，稱“我犯了一個大錯，我很後悔”。

At a few well-known tech companies over the last two years, male executives have departed after highly publicized sexual-harassment accusations. Keith Rabois left Square in 2013 after a relationship with a male employee led to harassment allegations. (Rabois said the relationship was consensual and defended himself in court.) GitHub founder Tom Preston-Warner resigned from the social coding site in April 2014 after a female developer said an engineer there hijacked her work after she refused to sleep with him. (The company found that Preston-Warner hadn’t committed legal wrongdoing but said he had made “mistakes and errors of judgment.”) Justin Mateen exited the dating app Tinder in July 2014 after a female co-founder provided texts in which he threatened her after she broke up with him. (The company condemned the messages but called the woman’s allegations against Tinder and its management “unfounded.”)

在過去兩年中，一些知名科技公司的男性高管遭到性騷擾指控後引發熱議，隨後選擇離職。2013年，基斯·拉布瓦(Keith Rabois)在與一名男性員工發展關係後遭到性騷擾指控，因此從Square離職。（拉布瓦表示，這是一段兩廂情願的關係，在法庭上爲自己做了辯護。）GitHub創始人湯姆·普雷斯頓-瓦爾納(Tom Preston-Warner)於2014年4月離開了這家社交編程網站，此前，一名女性開發人員稱，一名工程師在她拒絕與之上牀之後搶走了她的工作。（該公司發現，普雷斯頓-瓦爾納不存在違法行爲，但稱他“犯了錯，做出了錯誤的判斷”。）賈斯廷·馬丁(Justin Mateen)於2014年7月退出了約會應用Tinder，因爲一名女性聯合創始人提供的短信顯示，馬丁在兩人分手後對她進行威脅。（該公司譴責了這些短信，但稱這名女性對馬丁及管理層的指控“毫無根據”。）

Regardless of who — if anyone — is ultimately found to be at fault, Pao’s lawsuit suggests the singular role that venture capitalists could play in pushing, or thwarting, a cultural shift. As the kingmakers who decide which start-ups survive, they have the leverage to make the industry more receptive to women and their ideas or continue to reinforce the “brogrammer” norm. It’s more meaningful — if riskier — to hold venture capitalists accountable for sexism than to denounce young guys who act like jerks, à la Titstare. And what about the major public figures among the firms’ backers? Kleiner Perkins’s investors include Stanford’s endowment board and its university president, John Hennessy. Al Gore is a partner, and Colin Powell is a “strategic adviser.”

不管最後發現錯誤在誰——如果能確定的話，鮑康如的案件都顯示了風投者在推進或阻礙文化轉變方面發揮的重要作用。作爲決定初創公司存亡命運的關鍵人物，他們具有影響力，可以促使這個行業更願意接受女性和她們的想法，或繼續強化“爺們程序員”(brogrammer)的規範。與其去譴責Titstare那種犯渾的年輕人，讓風投者爲性別歧視負責更具意義——風險也更大。這些公司的資助者包括一些主要的公衆人物，他們怎麼樣呢？凱鵬華盈的投資者包括斯坦福大學(Stanford)的捐贈管理委員會和該校校長約翰·亨尼斯(John Hennessy)。阿爾·戈爾(Al Gore)是其合夥人，科林·鮑威爾(Colin Powell)是該公司的“戰略顧問”。

Young women preparing for careers in Silicon Valley are watching the signals that the venture capitalists send. Sierra Kaplan-Nelson, a computer-science major I met at Stanford, brought up the soaring trajectory of Evan Spiegel, the founder of the messaging service Snapchat, who as a Stanford student himself in 2009 wrote a stream of “sleazy frat emails,” as Valleywag put it in publishing them. (“Did I just pee on Lily while assuming the big spoon position?” reads one of the few that is quotable here. “Uhoh. Maybe I can blame this on her.”) Spiegel quickly apologized for the messages — and that, apparently, was that. In August, Snapchat became “one of the world’s most valuable private tech start-ups,” according to Forbes, worth $10 billion, after a successful round of fund-raising — led by none other than Kleiner Perkins, which put in $20 million.

爲進入硅谷而做準備的年輕女性正在關注風投者發出的信號。我在斯坦福大學結識了計算機科學專業的學生西拉·卡普蘭-內爾鬆(Sierra Kaplan-Nelson)，她提起信息服務公司Snapchat創始人埃文·斯皮格爾(Evan Spiegel)平步青雲的事業軌跡，2009年，還在斯坦福大學讀書的斯皮格爾寫了一些郵件，Valleywag公佈這些郵件時稱它們是些“哥們間的低俗郵件”。（可堪引用的內容不多，其中有一封說“我是不是從背後上的時候尿莉莉身上了？”“啊噢。說不定可以賴到她頭上。”）斯皮格爾迅速對這些信息表示了道歉——而此事顯然也就到此爲止了。8月，根據福布斯(Forbes)提供的信息，Snapchat已經成了“世界上價值最高的私營科技初創企業之一”，其市值爲100億美元（約合620億元人民幣）。公司之前進行了一輪成功的融資——正是由投了2000萬美元的凱鵬華盈領導。

“Did the value of Snapchat go down since those emails went out?” Kaplan-Nelson asked when I had lunch with her. “Not at all. The venture-capital world is looking for guys like Evan Spiegel.”

“這些電子郵件的內容公佈後，Snapchat的市值降低了嗎？”卡普蘭-尼爾森(Kaplan-Nelson)在與我共進午餐時問道。“根本沒有。風險投資的世界正在尋找像埃文·斯皮格爾這樣的傢伙。”